Watching
by lily moonlight
Summary: Someone is watching Mac. Someone who wants to do harm. But why, and to whom? Mac/Stella, cameos from the rest of the team. Suspense, drama and crime. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

-1**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY, wish I did though…**

**Notes**** Thank you for all the reviews of my previous work. This is somewhat creepy, bit of a psychological thriller, hopefully. Please let me know what you think. Written in the first person, but I must just stress, NOT me! I don't work in a diner : )**

Watching - Chapter One

The door opens. I look up and my heart beats wildly, heat rises to my cheeks. He walks into the room slowly, nods at the detective with glasses who brought me in here. With a sigh he pulls the chair out from under the table and sits in front of me.

I'm sitting across from him. So close I can see each line of his skin and hear him breathe. Slow breaths as if it hurts. The other detective stays standing against the wall. He looks at me, but I don't look back. He is nothing to me.

I smile at neither of them, just to myself. In my mind I write the scene, my words. They have taken my pen and notebook but it doesn't matter. I have words in my head. Words. I wait for him to speak. He lays his hands on the table, palms down, fingers towards me. I can almost touch his skin. I breathe.

He looks at me. I feel it and my eyes dart up to his, and away again. Something in those eyes I cannot look at yet. I lay one hand on the table and with the other twist a strand of hair through my fingers, risk another glance at him. His eyes almost burn me. Because there is sadness in them, a terrible sadness. At what I have done. My heart leaps and I look down again, with another smile.

He speaks one word, "Why?"

Why? Why not? How can I tell him when the words and the reasons are all spinning round in my head? So I say nothing.

"Why?"

This time the word rings out. His hands are white, pressed down hard on the table. Out of the corner of my eye I see the other detective take a step forward.

My eyes lock with the man sitting opposite me. He is fascinating to watch. I can see the pulse in his temple and the lines on his forehead. The clock ticks. His hand twitches. The words stop spinning and I say to him, "Because I wanted to."

………………………………...

I wanted to and I did. Perhaps I will tell him. The story is in my head. I live, I write, I work. I sit alone in my apartment and I watch and write. I work in a diner and I watch and write. One day I see him walking past along the street. He glances through the window and his eyes catch mine. He smiles and walks on. It is a Tuesday, a quarter after twelve. I remember the time and write it down.

It is another week before I see him again, a week and a day. Wednesday, the clock shows twenty minutes past three. Holding my breath, I wait for him to look in again. Only this time he doesn't. He is not alone this time, someone walks alongside him and he is looking at her, not me. He says something and she laughs. He does not look at me.

That night I sit in my apartment. Everything is still. The air is cold. Clocks tick in the velvet dusk and that is the only sound until I begin to write. Words. No one sees them. Ticking clocks. Who is she? Why is she with him? Why didn't he look at me?

Two weeks pass. Winter lays itself across the city, spreads frost and cold, white air through the streets. I watch the street every day and continue to serve coffee and bagels, smiling a plastic smile at my customers. They don't matter. I don't care about them. They spin around me like dust; blowing in through the door and out again as the time ticks by. Fading into the grey light. I see no colour. I wait to see his face.

The first Thursday of December. The air is as cold and clear as diamonds and the sun slices down through the buildings. He walks through the sunlight, through the door. His face is alive. He walks over and I smile truly.

He orders black coffee and I take it over to him, place it in front of him. He thanks me and I memorise the sound of his voice. He takes off his coat and puts it next to him. I wait behind the counter. I watch him. He is the colour in a faded scene. The door opens and a woman enters. She walks straight over to him and speaks his name. Now I know his name. Mac. I like the sound and keep it safe in my head. I say it to myself.

He looks up at her and his eyes are bright. They stay on her as she sits down opposite him. The light falls through the window onto his face, but some of it catches in her hair. I run my hands through my hair, long and black. He asks her a question and gives me her name. Stella. I will remember that too.

She tells him something I cannot hear. She stands up. He takes a long pull of coffee, stands also and picks up his coat. Leaves the nearly full cup on the table where I will pick it up from, and walks to the counter. She waits by the door. He smiles apologetically at me as he leaves a tip. It is more than he needs to. They leave together. Her fault. But I have her name now. I watch them walk away.

**Chapter two coming very soon. Please let me know what you think, good or bad?**


	2. Chapter 2

-1**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY, wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Okay, I was wrong, THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER! A little bit more wrote itself, so one more chapter to go after this. Thank you for all the reviews, please add more! Always like to know what people think. Things get a little darker from hereon…**

Watching - Chapter Two

The days are grey. I walk down the street to work, stepping carefully over the ice. Steam rises from the streets and mingles with the white breath of the city. I walk slowly, head down, words whisper to me. Someone knocks into me and I stumble. My purse drops onto the sidewalk. Someone apologises, bends down and picks it up, hands it to me. I look up then and it is him. Mac. Flushed and startled, I lose the words, can only stammer my thanks.

His face is kind. My fingers brush his as I take my purse. I want to say more to him, but then I see she is at his side and I am dumb. He smiles at me, but turns and walks away with her. They walk together, matching strides, faces turned towards each others. She puts one hand on his arm. The crowds push past me. I stand watching until they are out of sight. I feel as heavy as the leaden sky.

I reach the diner and pretend nothing is wrong. But it is wrong, all wrong. The day has died. Few bother to come in today so I can sit and think and write in the artificial light. The day ticks away. I know what I want to do and have to do. Black lines of words crawl over the pages. I have her name. I can hurt her. How? The words laugh softly and rustle. I draw black hearts on the paper. Broken hearts.

On the second Thursday of December I begin a new notebook. White pages, black ink. White sky, black buildings. Snow begins to tumble down. I stand by the door and feel the white petals fall on my hair, my hands, my face when I see him walking through the snow towards me. His head is down against the cold. My hands fall to my sides. I want to call out to him and ask him to come in, to leave the cold and snow but no words will leave my mouth. He walks past and I ache inside. My heart is black.

Christmas is gone. New Year is over. I work through the holidays. A few lonely souls come in to sit and stare through the windows while their days pass them by. I wait to see if he will come in, but he doesn't. Not yet.

On the second Saturday of January I walk past the Rockefeller Plaza at ten minutes past eight. My path is blocked by a policeman and a strip of yellow tape. A crowd has stopped to watch and I become part of it because he is behind the tape. A man lies face down and Mac bends over him examining and looking. He picks a knife up from the ground and drops it into a transparent bag. His coat swings open to show the gun he is carrying. His gun.

She stands behind Mac and takes photographs, points to things which he looks at. I realise it is twenty five minutes past eight. I start work at half past eight. It takes me three minutes to walk to work from here so I have to leave. Neither of them notice me.

When there is time I record what I saw earlier. All the things I saw. A gun, a knife, a body. Two detectives. The words on the paper wriggle into shapes and suggestions. When I reach my apartment after work, they dance about and sing in my ears. They show me things and tell me things. I pull the pages out of my notebook and lay white squares across the table. The squares stir in the draught until I trap them under a brass paperweight. It has a dull glow in the lamplight. The paper lies still beneath it.

It is a new day. The sunlight has washed through the sky and I gaze out and up through the windows. No one else is with me; the morning has only begun and I am early to work. Walking along, animated in talk and visible to me, I see the two people I am waiting for. They stop outside the door. He says something to her, she nods and they part. He walks back along the street while she pushes the door open and walks in.

After she orders two coffees from me, one black, one white, she takes a seat by the window and looks out of the window, fiddling with the sugar sachets on the table. I will straighten them later. I watch her, but she does not see me. She is waiting for him. I am waiting too.

She stands and pulls out her cell. Looks towards the door. No one is there. My hand closes around metal, safe and solid. Her back is towards me. She sighs and puts the phone back into her pocket. I am two steps behind her as she reaches into her pocket again.

Softly, I say her name, "Stella."

**Sorry! Couldn't resist leaving it here, Chapter Three up very shortly, I promise. Please let me know what you think.**


	3. Chapter 3

-1**Disclaimer**** I own very little, especially not CSI NY, wish I did though.**

**Notes**** Thank you for all the reviews, please add more! I really like to know what people think of my writing. Last chapter. What has she done?**

Watching - Chapter Three

_She sighs and puts the phone back into her pocket. I am two steps behind her as she reaches into her pocket again. _

_Softly, I say her name, "Stella."_

As she whirls round I raise my hand and lunge forward. Metal hits skin and bone with a dull sound. Without a word she drops to the floor, hitting the tiles hard. I lower my hand and look down at her. Her eyes are closed, her hair spills out behind her. Where she has fallen a bright circle of blood begins to spread across the white tiles which I will need to clean later. The blood is running from the gash that I have made down the side of her head. It seeps into her hair.

My heart beats fast. I have done what I wanted. And now the door swings open for him to enter. All in the tick of a second he looks at me, and then sees what I have done.

"Stella!" Suddenly he is beside her and his gun is pointed at me, "Drop your weapon! Drop it now!"

I let it drop to the floor with a crash. A tile splinters. His aim does not waver from me as with his other hand he reaches for his radio and calls for help. Over and over he says her name, but she is silent, she cannot speak his name.

In only minutes the door shakes on its hinges and two men burst through. I have time to see that one is tall with eyes of ice blue; the other is shorter, no tie, glasses that I cannot see his eyes through. The blue eyed man grabs me, pulls my hands behind my back, something closes around my wrists. He yells a torrent of words at me. They wash over me. I don't resist as he moves me back roughly.

The other man is next to Mac, he is angry, I see it in his movement.

He strides over to me and his face is in mine, "What the hell did you do to her?"

I look down. He follows my eyes and sees what is lying at my feet. He picks up the brass paperweight with a gloved hand. There is blood on it.

There is disbelief in his voice, "You hit her with this thing? Are you fuckin' crazy? You could have killed… "

He snaps back round to Mac who is still trying to wake the woman lying on the floor. He fails. The circle of blood creeps over the tiles. He is holding her head between his hands. Her eyes are still closed, dark lashes on white skin. Red on white. Mac looks at me and I almost stagger back at what I see in his eyes. Hatred. His face radiates anger and hatred. He doesn't understand.

"Get her away from here." His voice is cold rage.

Around me the scene begins to break up, words crack and shatter. Voices rise and fall. Someone pushes me through the door, onto the street. I stumble, and am pulled back up to my feet. Far away, coming closer, a siren wails. I am driven away.

I sit and wait in a cold room. Black lines around me. A clock beats past the minutes and then the hours. Many hours. I speak to no one. Words wait in my head. I sit still, feet together, hands in my lap, until the door clangs open and I am led to another room. There is a table and two chairs. I sit down.

………………………………...

We have sat for a long time in silence. He asks me again, "Why? Why did you want to?"

I reply, "Because I wanted to hurt her."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted you." My hand flies to my mouth, they were secret words.

He stares. Then I jerk in shock as his hand clamps round my wrist and pulls my hand down to the table. The other detective moves closer behind him. Puts a hand on his shoulder, "Mac…"

"Do you understand what you've done?"

I do and I lie, "I'm sorry she's dead."

The other detective slaps the table, "Like hell…".

Mac's eyes are darker than the night, "No. I don't think you are." My eyes are fixed on him. He continues in a low voice, "But whether you're sorry or not doesn't matter. What you think doesn't matter." His words cut me. "You don't matter. Shall I tell you why?"

"Why?" I am an echo.

"Because she isn't dead. You damn near could have killed her, you nearly did, but you failed, thank God. She regained consciousness an hour ago which is the only reason I'm sitting here now. Because if you had killed her…" He leans across the table, his face inches away from mine, "You would not be sitting here now, believe me."

I want to choke, I want to scream, my mouth opens silently.

"Is there anything you have to say now? Before we charge you?"

I am paralysed.

He pushes the chair back and stands, looks with pity, yes pity, at me. "Very well, if you have nothing more to say, I'm done talking to you. I have someone I need to be with." He looks at the other detective, "Danny, you and Flack can finish up here. I'm going back to Stella."

"Give her our best, Mac."

He walks out of the door and does not look back at me. My mind fills with blackness, black words buzzing and pressing down. The room closes in. My world closes in. All is lost.

THE END

**Any good? Please review and tell me what you thought, feedback much appreciated. Thank you! Chapter Three of 'Thorns' will be up shortly.**


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